Culture Clash #1: The Egg McMuffin

Today's Mem: 近, Jin4, Near

My first great culture clash was on my second day in China – incidentally, it was also the day I got married. We had taken a train from Shanghai to Huaibei, my wife’s hometown in Anhui province, and my (at that time) fiancée’s mum picked us up from the train station in the morning. My dear mother-in-law-to-be wanted to look after me, so imagining that I was missing western food, she bought me an Egg McMuffin for breakfast from the golden arches (in reality, I had only spent one night in China and was eager to try some Chinese food).

I’m not a big fan of McDonalds. In fact, I don’t even like using the name here on my blog in case it inadvertently works as advertising for them. But I gratefully accepted it and thanked her.

But before I could tuck into my breakfast, a beggar came to me asking for money. I had never seen such a thing before. New Zealand doesn’t have this kind of beggar. NZ has bums, who hit the streets as a way of life after they take too much drugs. China doesn’t have bums, it has beggars. These guys bring poverty to whole new levels. If the average NZ bum came to China and saw the beggars there, they’d be ashamed of themselves for their easy living.

New Zealand Bums Have No Idea

So I gave the poor cripple my Egg McMuffin. He’d enjoy it much more than I would! But I hadn’t realized the significance of this gift to me, because my mother-in-law was so shocked that I had given it away that she snatched it out of the hands of the beggar and gave it back to me. Needless to say I was flabbergasted, and certainly not so hungry anymore.

What looked to me as shameful and cold-blooded at that time, however, was in fact her caring for me. I hadn’t seen that kind of beggar before, but she had grown up with them around her whole life, and it’s understandable to be a little de-sensitized. I have been de-sensitized too, after living here only 3 years. So I didn’t realize at that time, but she wasn’t angry at me but angry at the beggar, and was caring for me. What she did for me was in fact a very nice gesture, another thing I hadn't realised was how expensive the food actually was and how 'fancy' it was considered in China as a foreign dish. To me it was an Egg McMuffin, to her it was posh foreign haut cuisine.

It takes a little retrospect to understand some things. This was my first big culture shock in China.